School Duel (2025) Fantasia 2025

Bleak black and deeply troubling film this is one of the feel bad films of the year. It is a bloody and broken scream into the night about the state of the world.

The film is the story of Sam Miller a bullied 13 year old living in a dystopian Florida where guns rule, school shootings are no big thing and  being macho, christian and right wing is the way to be. The state is in some twisted 1950's throw back.  When Sam strikes back at a bully who torments him he is punished. When he sees something about a School Duel, he signs up hoping to win and be crowned the king. Unfortunately it's a literal fight for life that isn't playing on a level field.

Think of the worst of society and the world today and it is here. This is a film where the worst of us plays out.  It is a terrfying thing. This is a world where our kids are sent to the slaughter.  In this Florida of the future there is no hope, only death.

It would be easy to compare this film to BATTLE ROYALE or  THE HUNGER GAMES, but that would be  lazy and dead wrong. Those films are several steps into fiction. the world of SCHOOL DUEL is just over the line. It's a film set in a world where  we will be when we stop getting upset with school shootings and stop fighting the morons who think "thoughts and prayers" actually makes dead kids better. It's a world run by bully's who think its fine to torment the weak. 

This is a deep visceral scream from the darkest abyss of a broken soul. It is a film that appears to have been made by some one who was almost broken by life, but pulled themself back from the abyss.  It is a clear eyed look at where we as a society and a country are headed. 

I went into the film thinking tht this was going to be something humorous and something I could shake off. I couldn't, because this this isn't funny. There is no humor in this film anywhere, just pain. Sam isn't an archetypal character in a polemic but a little kid who lives and breaths. When he picked up the grate to smash the kid tormenting him I found an instant connection to my life and when I was bullied. Too much pain welled up and I realized that I could never turn my pain into art.

Ultimately this isn't a movie but an elegy for death of the life we know. Yea we bleed for the doomed Sam (you thought this was going to end well? then you weren't paying attention) but mostly we bleed for the world as we know it. Long before the film ends this film will make you realize that unless we course correct, what happens here is just a precursor to something worse.

By the time the film ended I wanted to die. It removed any sense of hope, current events make me think that this future is coming. If you are paying attention to current events you see the world slipping towards this. My friend Liz Whiitemore has said that this film is a warning and something waving red flags but I think thats being much to hopeful. There is no hope here.

This film is brilliant.

I never want to see it again... but sadly I fear we will have to live it.